Category: SARS-CoV-2

COVID-19 LOCAL UPDATE

ONE THOUSAND CONFIRMED CASES IN CANADA.

China was in lockdown at 700, so on the basis of the math, we got between ten and twenty thousand people wandering around infected and not knowing it.

I think when we look back, Dr. Henry’s calm is going to look like murderous bullshit. We haven’t stopped public gatherings; Burnaby hasn’t declared an emergency.

Jeff and I remain fine and without symptoms.

As do the kids, Alex, Paul, Tom and Peggy, and Cindy, and Mike.

I’m getting off the internet now….

 

I got to see Mike yesterday

He gave me nitrile gloves and I gave him a little smidge of pot. It’s always so irritating when pot’s legal at both ends of a journey but you can’t take it in the middle because the American Federal Government is such a hosebag.

But for the rest of it, social distancing. He was leaning up against the Mustang and I’m like…. honestly I thought about our trip to the interior, the winding roads and the soaring mountains and the top down and I thought, miserably, that it will be years before we can do such a thing again.

Made scones yesterday, using the last of the raspberries.

Now to make coffee, since I feel like it.

sigh.

Mask pattern & Instructions.

Finally! I know what to do with my fabric scraps!!

Plague Year diary March 18

Mike, safely home with my earnest thankfulness, will not be returning to Denver before the end of this year. My relief is great. He is now in the second day of his quarantine; he transferred a simply whacking amount of cash into my account from which I will draw money for his groceries and, er, other consumables, which I will then purchase and leave outside his door.

What a life.

’emergencies’ are being declared from Malaysia to Slovenia to Australia.

Gen Xers are fighting with their parents to stay the fuck home, and they’re being ignored, as the Boomer parents drive all over hells half acre and do whatever they want because the coronavirus is a big hoax, you know.

Not being able to understand the implications of exponential math is kind of a drag, eh wot?

The kids are both still working; they don’t deal with the public.

Alex’s school is now closed; the daycare, apparently, is still open. I am still without symptoms and thus prepared to step into the childcare breach.

what I’ve learned so far and what I’m betting

re COVID-19 @ home recovery.

For your own sanity, try to recover at home if you can. If your oxygenation consistently goes under 88 and your pulse is consistently high (over 100 and staying there) and you feel chest tightness or you’re gasping, you probably need oxygen and you may need to be intubated. Intubation keeps people alive but it’s not free of risks or various kinds of cross contamination. The good thing about it is that by the time you need it you’re in no fucking shape to argue about it, so stay salty.

I’d advise you to read trip reports of people your age who’ve survived it. Read up on advice not to use ibuprofen or corticosteroids. Perform deep chest coughs – instructions earlier this week on this blog. Rest prone as much as you can (From the wikipedia article on ARDS, which along with organ failure is what’s killing people). Drink zero alcohol. Don’t drink too much water <– this is counterintuitive but is supported by science see that same article)  Don’t move except for hygiene and to turn in bed. Symptomatically relieve cough. Thump your back to bring up sputum and get rid of it, don’t swallow it.
Even a mild case will knock you on your ass for two weeks & people who’ve recovered say there’s often a marked rise in how well you feel at around the 7 day mark, during which you will overdo it, and then collapse back down with worse breathing than previously. You need to relax & release your inner sloth and do everything you can to help yourself breathe and not move. Even if you’re feeling better, don’t, you can cough yourself into a situation where your fragile lungs scar worse. So don’t move except the moving you have to do to prevent bedsores and clots and to pee.
TAKE YOUR SWEET ASS TIME RECOVERING. The recovering will need sanatoriums that help people get as much of their lung health back as possible. Post viral conditions will be real and will be spread across all age groups. If you get sick, rest and recuperate a LONG while; don’t make plans to do anything until at least two weeks after the last day you run a temperature and longer if you’re still testing positive.

smallish newish

I will insert one tiny bit of good medical news in the middle of this chaotic roil of *holy shit*. My routine mammography came back negative. mOm will be nodding but not smiling.

walked with Paul in the park. He is a complete slob about covering his mouth in the park, and he has a fairly consistent post nasal hack and I fucking pounded him one verbally, for which I’d like to publicly apologize, so I can’t even repeat what I said publicly to demonstrate how clever I am since that eviscerates the apology, but he started coughing into a hanky consistently after that so either it was an inspired piece of nagging

or he found a way to deflect my ire

either way or any other way I’m good

His foot after he tripped on the stairs longabout a week ago is still sore and tingly so he’s walking quite a bit slower, which I hate, because walking suits me better when I’m going as fast as my body in that moment can make time (depending on equipment, weather, health, wind, urgency and all the rest of that stuff all other shit being equal in other words) so I’m doggggin’ it and hating it. I want to go as fast as possible.

For the first time since I was having trouble walking (liver trouble) we couldn’t make the 2.5 km circuit around Deer Lake; we truncated the walk. It was obvious by the time we got up to the part of the park I call ‘the nettle stand’ that he was flagging, and not in pain exactly but experiencing discomfort. I really wanted to do the whole thing but I would have been an entire asshole.

The mood in the park was terrible. Nobody was saying hello back to Paul. Usually most people don’t but they make face or nod and people just weren’t.

I like walking with Jeff, as far as I’m concerned 87% of the time he’s going the perfect speed. Right now Paul’s walking like a ninety year old Chinese guy, a sort of inspiredly quick shuffle that doesn’t stress too many muscles or your balance that much. And he wears crocs. He insists they’re the most comfortable shoes he owns and fit his feet tightly enough to be safe but I have my frickin’ doubts, me dears.

The kids are probably going to keep working through a lot of this. The marble gets put into empty houses, mostly, and there’s not much public contact, although everybody’s from Italy, oh joy, and Keith’s place of employment means he only sees his coworkers. And then they both come home to a snot factory named Alex.

Isn’t it deeliteful?

I made some really nice pasta last night; it will be even better now. It was macaroni with Newmans Own Tomato Basil and I cut up black olives and the left over bacon from yesterday morning into it and it was nom. I shall wait an hour or so and consume some more. For now, tea.

I got three cans of evaporated milk; it’s better for coffee; milk powder, of which I already had some, is better for tea. My favourite brand of coffee was on sale when all this started.

Latest fanfic is doing well, a PWP Destiel ficlet. Seriously thinking of reposting the great long casefic I did, it’s like 180k words long, but not finished… it’s a poser.